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Many of the features of the Artificer's Armorer subclass published in Tasha's Cauldron directly impact their armor, and I have had a few questions on how these features would work in relation to magic armors.

The stack has already established that the level 3 feature Arcane Armor does indeed work on magic armors, so I am moving to the next one : Armor modifications

That feature describes that:

At 9th level, you learn how to use your artificer infusions to specially modify your Arcane Armor. That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor's special weapon

My question on that feature has to do with the Artificer's Infusion feature, that specifies that it works only on mundane items.
Because of that, my interpretation was that while you could use a magic armor for your arcane armor feature, it would mean that you would be unable to put infusions on it even when reaching 9th level, since the "magic property" of your armor would be carried over to each of the armor parts.
However while searching the web, I found many people arguing otherwise, and am now unsure about my reasoning.

Does the armor modification feature make you able to infuse the "extra" parts (e.g. boots or weapon) of your magic Arcane armor, or does the "magic" property of the armor carry over on those parts and make you unable to do so?

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    \$\begingroup\$ One consideration is if you can wear other magic boots, gloves, etc. with magic armor. Regardless of infusions, since you can have different magic items for each of the various parts of the body, would this imply that you could mix and match mundane or magical gloves (for example) with any suit of armor? Full plate (as another example) generally comes with a helmet. Does that prevent you from wearing a different helmet (aesthetics aside)? \$\endgroup\$
    – Imaginary
    Mar 30, 2021 at 17:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Imaginary Specifically on the helmet part the level 3 feature Arcane armor specifically says you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action, so I believe you can do whatever you want on that. I personnally think it's fine to extend this function to hands and feet, because why not? If the head can be uncovered it makes sense that gloves and feet could be too \$\endgroup\$
    – Lymakk
    Mar 31, 2021 at 19:07

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First, I agree with your interpretation: You can't infuse magic armor, whether it's your Arcane Armor or not.

However, since it says the chestpiece counts as the "armor" part for the purpose of infusion, I would rule that you can't infuse the chestpiece, but you can infuse the gauntlets, boots, etc.

Naturally, if you ever donned a new suit of armor (which ends the Arcane Armor effect) the old suit would immediately lose all its infusions, since the gauntlets, boots, etc, no longer count as separate items. But that would happen whether it's magic armor or not, except that non-magical armor could theoretically retain the chestplate infusion.

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